Footsteps Brief - Project Proposal

Title - Candid Conceptual

Details of Brief

For this project I plan to be investigating candid, location portraiture in all forms; looking at naturally formed portraiture. My intended locations will be on the location in which the  is already based, un-staged and unaltered, the image will be produced in a completely natural form. My inspiration for this comes from nature and street candid styles of photography. I intend to find a mid ground for this in developing images that connect both forms of photography together.

Context 

My conclusion is that I will be producing images to inspire and bewilder the viewer, aiding to development of a new style of photography. In order to create this unique and fresh feel, my intentions are to use complex and out of the ordinary techniques such as framing, timing (spur of the moment, and exposure), clarity and contrasts along with extravagant photoshopping techniques and skills.

Statement of intent

My aim is to produce 8 final images, shot on digital and film, as i intend to maintain a very candid 'spur of the moment' kind of feel, in addition to achieve this, i will be minimally using photoshop.

My prints will be 12" x 14" and presented on matt, black card.

The equipment i will use will be: Nikon D5000/D200, Olympus OM and trip series cameras using Ilford FP4 film, Metz hammerhead flash with remote release and a tripod.

Upon commencing shoots for my location final images, i have come to the conclusion that in order to acquire these shots completely uninterrupted, naturally formed, void of all contact by human nature, the project would surely become too extensive and could take weeks, months or years to produce 8 images of a unique nature. It was upon this conclusion that i decided to instead, to physically manipulate the image but as little as possible, adding nothing to the scene, only rearranging and taking away in order to portray a natural feeling image, still with meaning and the portrayal of human features.
 
My inspiration for this idea comes from:

Philip Lorca DiCorcia

DiCorcia's works sport strong, spontaneous stylings in which DiCorcia works on the basis of completely candid techniques, surprising and shocking the subject and catching them unawares. DiCorcia worked on a series of images in which he set up a camera, flash and tripod on a street corner, photographing passers by when theyre not expecting it, in these numerous portraits, its often a peculiar sight to see the mixtures of people depicted together, like the above image, in what appears to be a business man walking with a 'thug', a gang member, it is an odd thing to see this mix of people, from such vastly different walks of life, depicted in the same scene. The image of the businessman and gang member, also plays quite a humorous stereotypical role-reversal scenario in which it appears that the businessman is stalking the black man, with an uneasy look on his face, its a comical portrayal as typically people are intimidated by gang members and it is usual or a general occurrence that gangs typically stalk and target lonesome people, generally ending in a mugging or attack, its almost imaginable that the businessman's intent is to do this. 


The scenes that DiCorcia creates are completely candid, the reactions of the subject completely spontaneous and un-staged, it is in the style that i want to represent my work, with 'spur of the moment' stylings, my intentions are to recreate the feel of DiCorcia's works but using my own techniques. The images i intend to create will be natural portraiture in all forms, this is predominantly the portrayal of the features of a face depicted in any way possible, for example: A tree trunk, aged weathered and decayed over the years, if depicted correctly to some eyes, this could portray a face. Sticks, broken, thrown about again could there be some features in this? My aim is to create portraits of natural forming, finding facial features in the most unsuspecting scenes, objects and areas.